STI G9SP are software-based stand-alone controllers that are quickly programmed and reconfigured to satisfy the complex and evolving safety control needs of small and mid-sized machines. This makes them ideal in applications where customer-driven machine set-up changes demand flexible safety solutions.

An interesting article indeed. But the main reason for control and safety systems being combined is cost reduction, nothing else. Of course the costs were being raised as more and more safety requirements were added. Some of the added safety requirements are reasonable, and some are quite plainly not reasonable. The driving force certainly looks like a decision to remove the individuals personal responsibility for their own safety. For that change we can thank the lawyers and the courts.

Now what is becoming clear is that to be able to meet the ever increasing safety requirements the machine safety systems are becoming much more complex, which is what has made the combining of safety and control, systems more desireable, in order to avoid needing to supply two individual complex systems.

Excellent and very informative article. Some users need to get used to the idea that one controller and software can achieve this safety/control convergence but this trend is here to stay. Thanks for your insights into the technology.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

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